There is one in their head and one in their belly. We call the one in the belly the Belly Brain. It's the one brain in their belly, the Belly Brain, that in safety, is the more important of the two.
Why should you care about a Belly Brain? Simple. It is the one thing you and your child can count on in their ability to keep themselves safe. At some point in their life, your child is going out somewhere with out you. School. The end of the yard. The Park. Soccer practice. The Mall as a teenager.
At some point in their life your child will be out without you and will need to be able to take care of themselves against any danger. In safety, we think kids can learn to sense danger as it is developing and get away from it. Sometimes they'll even be able to see it and avoid it. It's called prevention.
It can be any type of childhood threat such as bullies at school, a car slowing as it goes up and down the street, being near a neighbor or close family friend or being in a room one on one with another adult.
When something inappropriate or threatening develops we want your child's natural instincts, which we simply bring awareness to and build upon, to go off. We want them to find a trusted adult, parent or family member and get help. We want them to act confidently, assuredly and quickly.
Thus, the Belly Brain. You need it because your child needs it. It is the first line of defense, prevention, in their ability to keep themselves safe. Frankly, it's the name that is unique: Belly Brain.
You've got two, we have two, your child has two. Yes, there is the tangible anatomical brain in our head. That's one. Then there is the brain in our stomach. It's what we call our natural instincts, intuition, our visceral feeling, that gut reaction about people, places and things.
Our society and culture, as we grow, does it's best to negate this instinct and get us to "think" instead of following natural instincts. We quietly and very efficiently learn to ignore our intuition.
Why do you think there is such a proliferation of self help groups and "back to nature" and rediscovering our true self programs for adults? They all have one thing in common: getting back to listening to what is truly inside ourselves.
Kids have this intuition. They just need to learn to pay attention to it. When children are young and are taught to listen to that little voice inside that is always there to protect them, they can use it effectively in keeping themselves safe.
Confidence belies and underlying, subconscious message that says, "I'm not easy. I'm not going down." Confidence takes care of thwarting the majority of potential threats from other people your child can face.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of kids today that are not confident. They shrink from contact with adults. They bow their heads and look at their feet when they talk with others. They feel just a little less important than other kids and they fail to make eye contact with even the smallest of other children.
If your young child is not very confident, then teach then to pretend they are confident. Yes, this is a very sensitive issue with most parents. No one wants to admit their child lacks self-esteem. In doing so one admits they have not built it into their child from birth. Who wants that kind of responsibility or admittance of failure?
However, you need to make a difficult assessment. Again, if your child is not confident, then teach them to pretend they are. Teach it as a game. Call it the "Feel Good Feel Bad" game.
Ask them if they want to play a game. Get excited, get their attention. Play it with them. Have your child walk around the room and at the command of "Feel Bad!" have them hang their heads, shuffle around and moan. Actually ask them to go back to a time when they might have been sick or sad, and remember what that feels like in their bodies. In doing so, we can actually begin to see some of the children sagging in their posture.
After a few minutes of this ask them to remember a time when they were really, really happy and excited. Perhaps it was their birthday. Perhaps it was Christmas Day, opening presents. Whatever it is, we take them there in their minds for a brief few moments and have them bounce around feeling happy. You can see them physically straightening up as they envision their happy, exciting moments.
Through a series of "Feel Bad!" and "Feel Good!" commands you expose them to the way these two states feel and the bodily sensations that each of them create. You want them to be able to differentiate between physically feeling good and feeling bad.
More importantly, when you see they understand the difference, you can then teach them to pretend they can "Feel Good" even when they don't. What you are really doing is getting them to turn feeling good on whenever they want to do it.
This means they can at least project confidence even though they may not feel that way for any number of reasons. You can now get them to "Feel Good" and appear so (meaning appearing more confident) especially when they are outside or alone.
If you can get your child to appear confident even when they don't feel that way they become less of a target for predators. Kids can learn to fake out predators with these simple games. They give a child an extra edge of safety whenever they may find themselves alone without Mom or Dad.
It is also possible that if your child can begin to feel good when they need to or want to, they tend to like how it feels. They slowly begin to gravitate more and more to those good feelings we show them. It means they can really take hold if parents reinforce these ideas at home.
Joyce Jackson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Banking, Children and SEO Search Engine Optimization. Joyce Jackson is a child safety expert, #1 bestseling author, consultant speaker and trainer. For more on the Belly Brain of Safety see . Joyce Jackson's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.